Salvatore “Dago Louie” Piscopo aka Luigi Merrili was a made guy in the Jack Dragna Crime Family. He got his button/made the same time Jimmy “The Weasel” Fratianno got his.

Dago Louie, nobody ever called him that to his face, spoke fluent broken English. He was a hothead. He clipped a couple of guys back in the “Old Country” over a fucking nanny goat. He was old-school smart, drove a brand new Caddy, dressed sharp, and he always carried a gun and a bankroll big enough to choke a pig.

He oversaw the LA Mob’s bookmaking operation which extended from Beverly Hills to Watts.. He hated Watts. To him, it was like leaving a Penthouse to go take a dump in a outhouse.

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Top Mafioso, Johnny Roselli carried almost as much clout in the Dragna mob as General Jack Dragna. Johnny made Dago Louie his lieutenant, which elevated him to a higher level than that of an ordinary soldier. He also doled out special duties to Dago Louie like making collections, and occasionally delivering cash on-the-down-low to Johnny’s relatives in Boston.

Most nights you could find Dago Louie sitting at the bar in the Villa Capri where my dad worked as a bartender, but on Sundays, come hell or high water, he would show up at my house with his

appetite and apron to make the Sunday sauce with my Mother. Others had told me he was hardcore Mafia, but to me, he was just a funny talking greasball. who massacred my mothers gravy. I would wise up one day…

Me and my pals were having trouble with this bully named George. He was from Philly and he was big; like a fucking building with feet. He was a thirty something ex-pug and he was shaking everyone down on the boulevard, even for chump change.

I had managed to stay under his radar until one day my luck ran out. He caught me on Hollywood boulevard with my girlfriend, beat me up , took my money and humiliated me.

Bottom line, I couldn’t live with myself unless I killed this guy. To do it, I had to dive in and sink or swim. I made a meet with George near the Hollywood High Malt Shop. I had told him I would bring him one lump sum of cash so he would leave me alone. He shows up to get paid, but he got paid back instead.

.

I stabbed him with a hunting knife in the belly, so, deep, that when I pulled it out it had green slime on the blade. He dropped to his knees and screamed like a bitch: “I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it!”, I did.. ..

I plunged the blade into him wherever I could. I saw a look of terror on his face, a look I would come to see on many faces in the years to come. I kept stabbing him until I heard a woman scream . And then , covered in blood , I made my getaway.

Like an amateur, I went home and hid the knife in my closet. What the fuck? I was an eighteen year old kid doing my first piece of work. My friend Jerry came by and I told him what I did. He didn’t believe me until I showed him the bloody knife. A few days later he told his father who worked in the Villa, and he told both my father and Dagon Louie.

I went to the Villa to talk to my dad about it, and Dago Louie stopped me in the parking lot before I reached the Villa’s front door. He says something like: ” You good boy. You make all bastardo respect-a-you. You wanna make-a- some-a- money, come-a-see-me.”

Even though I needed an interpreter, I figured it had to be a good offer. Through Dagon Louie, the Mafia courted me like a bride and groomed me to become a “Slugger”. I knew I could kill, even though this fucking, ghoul, George, had survived.. He probably got the help of a witch or two to do it. I mean, he ate the blade six times.

I went to work for Dago Louie and Johnny Roselli became my good friend after I did him a solid. Dean Martin went to Johnny for a favor. His ex wife Betty, who was a lush, was cheated out of her alimony money by two swindlers. One of them was a hitman named Pat LaPrieda. Johnny gave the order to Dago Louie who gave the order to me. It’s that easy. When you are in the Mafia High Command, you press a button, and it gets done. I was the doer and I got the cash back. Dean was grateful to me and I had earned Johnny’s affection and respect.

Over the years, I got a button and bossed a crew in the Los Angeles Crime Family.

I even took over as the acting boss in Mobster, Mike Rizzitelo’s crew, which was a faction of the Gambino Crime family operating in Los Angeles. My nickname was Tony “The Animal”. At least it sounded better than Tony ” The Molester”….

I lived the American Dream, Hollywood, Mafia style. I owned a home in Beverly Hills, drove a Porsche 928 and wore two thousand dollar Armani suits . It beat being a fucking loser walking around in a moth eaten Members Only jacket like some Capos I knew.

Just like Johnny, I hobnobbed with Hollywood stars but I banged bunnies at the Playboy Mansion

and he didn’t…

I got nailed by the Feds and went to work for Uncle Sam wearing a wire for a couple of years. I worked my way out of doing 300 more of them in the slammer.

Dago Louie carried his grudges, and probably his gun, to his grave. He died of old age, and Johnny, well, “Humpty Dumpty” had a better shot than Johnny at being put back together again. He was found chopped up in pieces in a bobbing fuel drum floating in Dumbflounding Bay, near Miami, Florida. .

I am doing better than some ratfellas. I am working on a book and a tan while Stevie Flemmi is working on his prison pallor and Whitey, well, he is probably hitting some young kid in the keaster in a Frisco or Fire Island bath house. All things considered, everything is “Jake”, old-school cool.

My next book is in the works and it covers my connections with high caliber Mafia Mobsters in Boston, New York, and Las Vegas.